


Rose, the Fabric Alchemist

by brtnvm



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alchemy, Angst, Female Protagonist, Other, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 08:46:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17659565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brtnvm/pseuds/brtnvm
Summary: After the fake prophet of Liore, Cornello, was exposed by Edward for his horrible lies, Rose Thomas is left all alone. Luckily, she overheard Edward's and Cornello's conversation about the Philosopher stone. Inspired by her neverdying hope, Rose starts her journey to become an alchemist in order to revive her dead boyfriend Cain.





	1. Chapter 1

It was a sunny day in the city of Liore.

"Why!? Why!? Cornello was the only man who gave us hope! Who gave you the right to take it away from us!"

Rose Thomas, a poor girl from the desert city of Liore, accusingly shouted at Edward for intruding into the lives of the inhabitants of the city. and broke out into tears.

"You're a young girl. All your future is ahead of you. You've got a pair of healthy legs, so go and find your own path instead of listening to stupid false prophets."

Then Edward and his robot pal left into the sunset, leaving Rose all alone. Psychologically torn apart after the recent events, where it turned out that her boyfriend Cain could not be revived, she cried , lying at the debris of the broken statue of the fake god Leto.

She spent all night on the street, mentally tearing herself apart... It was so hard to accept that Cornello was lying... and Edward... he was right... but! he was wrong! then Rose remembered... , Edward and Cornello were talking about some stone, a Philosopher stone, that it had the power to revive people... She couldn't fall asleep even when the sun rised and so another morning came.

Suddenly an idea captivated Rose's mind completely. She stood up, managing to hold back her tears. After breathing out one last time, she walked out of the city without looking back. She had no idea where the hell she was going, but she would never return. She learned one lesson in her life - as long as you have hope, you have life. So she was dead set on finding the Philosopher stone. She knew literally nothing about alchemy. But, that wasn't going to stop her. She felt like she could do literally anything at this moment.

She just had to revive Cain and now she knew it was actually possible, she just had to believe in that...

Rose left Liore. She walked into the direction of the rising sun, just like the fake prophecies of Leto told.

Rose Thomas was going to become an alchemist, no matter what.


	2. Chapter 2

Rose kept walking without stopping all day until she reached a forest river. She sat under a tree and fell asleep.

...

When she woke up next morning she couldn't remember what exactly she was dreaming of. At first she was shocked and didn't understand what she was doing here, in a small oak forest in a glade. The air was refreshing, and the river provided clean water. She immediately bent down onto her knees and hands on the shore and put her mouth into the clean river water and started drinking it. It was so fresh - at that moment it was the tastiest thing in the whole world. She bent back and leaned on the nearby oak tree. Her white dress was all dusty from yesterday's trip and her body hurt from walking so far - she had never left the city before. She began remembering what happened.

First, she remembered her boyfriend Cain. But she didn't want to think about him because thoughts about him and what Cornello transformed him into -

Suddenly Rose realized something. She rapidly started thinking and remembering about all the details of those events.

If she wanted to revive Cain-

she would probably need some sort of remnants of his body-

so she had to go to the cemetery to dig up his bones-

But-

the city hall was damaged in Edward's fight against Cornello-

Cain's body was somehow turned into a bird monster with Cornello's magic ring-

and that meant that Cornello had already dug up Cain's bones to use them to revive him as a bird-

But that Cain was different. Even though he was trapped into a bird body, he-

It was him. No doubt. Rose could recognize him out of a thousand people-

But he wasn't himself-

After becoming a bird monster, he lost his mind and even tried to kill her-

That was definitely a revival, but also definitely not a true revival-

And then the mysterious Iron Man had killed him, but at moment Rose was too scared to realize what was happening-

This meant that by now the room where Cain's revived and now dead bird body was probably cleaned-

As far as Rose knew, his remnants were probably already burnt by the cleaners in a stove to get rid of them- that's what Liore people did with trash-

They burnt it. Cain's bird body was probably already burnt yesterday. When Rose finally realized that she broke into tears - her last hope had been crushed. First Cornello turned out to be a fake prophet, now this. Why didn't she take Cain's bones!? Why didn't she think about this earlier!? She felt so stupid and guilty. She had a chance. But now she didn't. Tears were running like rivers on her face. She cried for an hour.

Then she just felt emptiness.

Her stomach started growling. She got hungry. She thought about starving to death. She sat there at the oak tree for a few hours. If only she knew alchemy! She would be able to do a lot of magic! She would be able to make herself some food from thin air! But now she didn't care. She looked at the river. A very bad idea appeared in her mind.

She wanted to drown in the river. She couldn't live without faith - and it was broken right before her very own eyes. She had nothing to live for anymore. She stood on the edge of the river shore, ready to jump in and meet her death.

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. Chapter 3

Rose was standing on the river shore, ready to jump. She prepared to jump, but then stopped. Then she wanted to jump again but she stopped again. Then she wanted to jump again but she stopped again. In the end, she was too scared to give away her life to the river, and she hated herself for being such a coward. But something (maybe her common sense?) just didn't allow her to jump in. She collapsed to her knees in frustration and started hitting the sand, making her fists all dirty with the river shore soil. Once again, she broke into a cascade of tears, but those were tears of disappointment with her life.

FLASHBACK

Rose was an orphan. Her first memories were from living on the streets of Liore city at the age of 4 (approximately). Luckily, she was taken in by the local baker's family, who always gave her food and water. They even let her live in the backyard of their house in the storage building where they crafted a special sleeping place for her. They called her Rose because of her hair that was partially pink and contrasted in a nice way with her dark skin and it resembled a rose. She also got her last name, Thomas, from the baker's family. However, they always kept her at a distance, making it clear that she was not a part of their family. Since she was always poor, she was always looked down upon by most of the townspeople. There were also rumours (these rumours were supported by people who supposedly knew Rose's mom in person) that her mom was a woman who sold her body for money and that she died because of a disease. It was somewhere at the age of 9 (she didn't know exactly how old she was) that she began to understand why people always insulted and offended her.

("Hobo!"); ("Daughter of a filthy hooker!"); ("I wish scum like you would die out!"); - she was used to hearing stuff like this all the time from the baker's customers and random people, but when the baker's daughter (whom she was sometimes allowed to play with and was about the same age) explained what it meant, she broke into a depression. She had nobody to support her, so she had to cope with the pain and because of this she grew into a psychologically closed person. Of course, all her free time she had to spend doing the hardest and dirtiest work at the baker's shop and all they gave her in return was food - no money at all. Sometimes when the baker or his wife were drunk they would beat her up or refuse to feed her until she begged. But she didn't know any other life. So she accepted what she got with great gratitude even though she wasn't really happy. She didn't even think her life could go any other way.

One day, the baker's wife died. Rose was about 15 years when it happened. She started noticing everyday how the baker, who was now a widow became stranger and stranger everyday. He became a very silent person, overwhelmed by the sadness of his wife's death. She noticed how sometimes the baker would just stare at her for a long period of time and it really creeped her out. When she asked him what did he want he didn't say anything and walked away.

On one full moon night, Rose as usually went to sleep after work in her storage building. It was quite late, around midnight because that day she had a lot of work. She was falling asleep when suddenly she was grabbed by somebody in the darkness and pinned to her improvised bed, -

"AAAAAAAHH! HELLLP!" She screamed, but soon her mouth was covered by somebody's very strong hand. It was impossible to see who it was in the darkness. She struggled against the unknown attacker but it was useless since she was just a weak girl. The attacker tried to tear apart Rose's white dress, which was her only clothes.

Rose desperately grabbed a clay bowl where she usually had her food in. It was standing right next to her bed as usual. Gathering all her strength, she hit the unseeable attacker on the head. She must have hit a sensitive spot because he(?) fell to the wall and moaned in pain. She opened the door in shock and the moonlight instantly filled the small space, revealling the attacker to actually be the baker! the man who she knew for her whole conscious life and who was like a father to her! She was filled with adrenaline from the recent fight and she couldn't believe her eyes! But the baker's eyes were filled with animal lust and they were so unnaturally energetic that Rose understood that the baker must have gone mad after his wife's death. She understood that he wanted to take her body by force so she ran. She was shocked and couldn't think properly. She was disgusted and scared and she was crying as she ran away forever from the baker's house.

She ran in the streets of Liore until she was so tired she fell asleep on the street. That's how she met Cain. He was 25 years old and he was born in the Central City. He was an alchemist who couldn't update his license because of his lack of talent in Alchemy so he lost his salary and the status of State Alchemist. In search of a better life, he became a traveler. In his travels across the country he met Cornello the priest who introduced him to his Leto cult. He put all his faith into religion and rejected the ways of Alchemy. There were about 10 followers of Cornello, and together they went to Liore city to start spreading their faith from there because Cornello owned some land there and Cornello planned to build his first church there.

However, Cain never told any of that to Rose, saying that people must only believe in the future and forget the past for it does not affect the day of today. To her, he was just was a missionary of a new religion of the sun god Leto. He found Rose lying in the street when he was taking a walk in the morning. He taught her the basics of reading and writing and surrounded her with such love and care that she, too, joined the cult of Leto, leaded by Cornello. Blinded by her love to Cain, she didn't see anything else. She told him about her past. He hugged her and convinced her that the past did not matter and he told her to forget about her past too. Together they prayed to the Sun. The sun god Leto. Cain became the first man who was Rose's lover. She trusted him with all her heart and dreamed of the day when they would have lots of children praying every morning to the sun. By this time Rose was about 17 years old.

But suddenly one day, Cain died when he tried to save people who were caught in a burning house. But he died and those people died too. Rose was crying because her whole world fell apart. Nothing could ever replace him in her life. Her sadness made her the saddest girl in Liore. Until Cornello the priest told her that there was a way to revive Cain. But then Edward and his Iron brother came and destroyed that hope.

And now she was completely out of options. She stopped crying and sat in silence at the river shore.

"Rose!"

Suddenly, she heard a voice. She turned around to see who it was.


	4. Chapter 4

And now she was completely out of options. She stopped crying and sat in silence at the river shore.

"Rose!"

Suddenly, she heard a voice. She turned around to see who it was.

...

Nobody was there...it was just her imagination...She felt sorrow breaking outside again, and uncontrollable angst..

She was about to cry again, but at that moment a ray of sunlight fell onto her eyes through the forest tree branches. She looked at the sun with the edge of her eyesight through the leaves partially blocking the morning sun. She remembered the times when she would pray to the Sun God Leto together with Cain. She could hear the birds singing in the forest. She started hearing the wind gently touching the trees. She started hearing the lazy flow of the river - she couldn't notice what was around her before because of her depression. Now a positive memory made her warm again from the inside. She didn't want to think or worry about anything, - she just layed under the sunlight on the forest grass near the river for a long time.

She finally calmed down. She opened her eyes and smiled when she looked up at the clouds swimming across the sky. She decided to forget all her old memories but to keep only one memory - the memory of her love for Cain so she could live on and continue her life. She decided to still try to become an Alchemist because there was nothing else for her left to do - she decided to never return to Liore city because that would be just too painful. She knew that Alchemists had knowledge, and knowledge gives access to great power. Of course that wasn't exactly Rose's flow of thoughts, but that's what her intuition was telling her. Deep in her heart, she still had a hope that Alchemy would give her a way to revive Cain. But she would not be dragged down by the past anymore. It was time to take a step into the future without looking back.

Rose drank from that river again and continued her path down the river. After a long trip, by the evening she finally arrived to a small village that she could see in the distance in the warm-cold blue evening air. The houses were emitting smoke from the chimneys. She was very hungry, so she decided to to ask for some food.


	5. Chapter 5

A quiet evening in the summer. The blue-late-evening air is filled with warmth but its also eventually cooling down. What a pleasant time it is right now in the village! The village is surrounded by a forest and there is also a river nearby. They say that a long time ago, maybe 50 years ago, an Alchemist used to live in this village. But he has long since died.

A girl in a dirty white dress that was now more brown than white, knocked on the door of one of the houses.

(knock-knock)

Another girl in traditional rural clothing opened the door.

"Hello, who is it -

oh, my, you look hungry! Come in, come in. I shall give you some food and water. You can stay here."

Rose entered but she was too tired to see who let her in. She just absent-mindedly nodded in agreement.

Rose was absolutely exhausted from walking without food for two days. She couldn't even perceive what was happening around her properly. She immediately ate a bread and drank some milk from the table, as soon as she finished she layed on the wooden bench which she was sitting on, she collapsed on it and fell asleep.

...

When Rose woke up, she saw that she was sleeping in a bed - a simple villager bed, but it was still more luxurious than anything she had ever slept on in her entire life.

"Yawwwwwwnnn... What a nice morning. The sun is shining so nice from the window... I really like the wooden walls - they're made out of logs... Oh, right I'm in a villager house right now. I wonder where everybody is?"

Nobody seemed to be around. The window was open. Rose looked out of it. Rose was surprised at how quiet everything was. She could clearly hear birds singing. She was really surprised at how wonderful everything in this place was. In her own city, Liore, everything was dusty and covered in sand, sure , they had a river too, but in this village there were just so much more trees, flowers, grass, everything! For a second she even thought that she arrived to heaven but then she pinched herself to return to reality.

Then she noticed a set of rural clothings laying at the edge of the bed where she awoke. "Is this for me? Probably, but it would be awkward if I touch someone else's clothes. I won't touch them." Rose left the room.

She discovered that the house had only three rooms - a bedroom, a kitchen, and an entrance room. The whole house was built around a brick oven, and the oven chimney stuck out of the roof right in the middle. The house was certainly really small and old - in fact, Rose of course didn't know this, but it was built 96 years ago. In the kitchen she found boiled potatoes, a bowl of sour cream and a plate with salt. She ate half of the food on the table and exited the house and started looking at the scenery from the small wooden porch.

"Hey! Good morning, girl!" Somebody called Rose.

She saw a young girl roughly her age, maybe a few years older, approaching the house with a handful of brushwood.

"Hello!" Rose replied.


End file.
